Abstract
Lab-on-fiber technology is an emerging topic for sensing cutting-edge technologies due to the high versatility and functionality that it offers when it is combined with different sensitive materials. A particular configuration, which consists of the integration of nanophotonic structures into the tip of a pigtailed fiber, allows the exploitation of light localization performances to produce high-performing sensors. However, integrating such tiny structures into the fiber facet requires complex and expensive procedures. In this work, we report a novel high precision assembly procedure that ensures the parallelism between the photonic chip and the fiber surface, in addition to the alignment with the light injection into the nanostructure. The integrated structure consists of an ultra-compact (19 μm × 19 μm) Photonic Crystal Slab (PCS) structure based on a 700 nm thin film of lithium niobate (LN) which is sensitive to external E-fields via the electro-optic effect. Thus, the assembled sensor detects electric fields, presenting great linearity and a sensitivity of 170 V/m. This technique shows a way to assemble compact planar nanostructures into fiber facets keeping high throughput, high precision, and relatively low costs.
Highlights
Optical fibers are experiencing an important growth, in addition to data transport, in the sensing field due to their unique versatility
In a recent work from our group [9], a GRbased fiber tip configuration is combined with lithium niobate (LN) in order to enhance its electro- optical performances producing an ultra-compact and distortion-free electric field sensing probe
A sub-micrometer free standing slab with a photonic crystal (PhC) is designed in a 700 nm TFLN membrane so that it can be integrated on the fiber tip
Summary
Optical fibers are experiencing an important growth, in addition to data transport, in the sensing field due to their unique versatility. The mentioned fiber tip E-field sensor [9] utilizes a PhC with an area of 19 μm × 19 μm which requires, due to its compact size, more complex and expensive systems such as the FIB system for the precise welding between the PCS and the fiber facet This process, due to its serial nature, generally lasts several hours for each sensor head, leading to a low throughput-integration process remaining still far from massive production procedures. An active positioning system is implemented which allows, by observing the spectrum of the GRs during the assembly, the control of different parameters such as the beam centering This novel assembly method can be used for the batch production of different GR-based fiber tip sensors, for a large range of applications, beyond E-field sensors, like the measurement of physical parameters such as pressure, refractive index, temperature, etc
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